Is it interesting to make a book and exhibition about a seemingly small subject as your neighbour? What is the importance of another book about the landing of the Allies in Normandy in 1944? Is a photo book about North Korea in advance propaganda for a cruel, dictatorial regime?

The love for photo books is on a rise. This evening we are going to talk to three photographers who stood out with special photo books at the end of last year. Each of them spent years, in their own way, on their subject. What is the secret of a successful photo book?

On Tuesday February 13 PhotoQ Bookshop, DuPho and Pakhuis De Zwijger organise the 50th edition of ‘Fotokroniek’ a show with photographers talking about their work. For this special occasion we invited Eddo Hartmann, Rob Hornstra and Donald Weber to tell more about their acclaimed books, published last fall. Moderator of the evening – in English – is philosopher and theatre director Puck van Dijk. The evening starts at 20 hrs.

Donald Weber – ‘War Sand’

In ‘War Sand’, Donald Weber uses microscopic photographs of sand grains on Omaha Beach, which still contain traces of the events of 1944, along with stills from heroic Hollywood film, other historical material and recent landscape photographs. War Sand seeks a great truth: What is history? And what does it mean to us, its creators and survivors? Canadian photographer Donald Weber published the book ‘War Sand’ just before the turn of the year.

Rob Hornstra – ‘Man Next Door’

While working on other series Rob Hornstra followed his neighbour Kid who lives in an anti-squat house in a demolition district in Utrecht, where he is sinking further and further into a world of drug use, poverty and aggravated petty crime. ‘Man Next Door’ is a book that Hornstra has published in-house and an exhibition that can be seen until the beginning of March in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.

Eddo Hartmann – ‘Setting the Stage – North Korea’

The cliché images of North Korea with its mass gatherings on large squares; it is a familiar image. With a minimum of freedom of movement, Eddo Hartmann succeeds in making his own mark on this orchestrated reality. It seems that with intelligent use of the superficial beauty – as the regime prefers to display – it succeeds in giving strong criticism to the attentive Western viewer. ‘Setting the Stage – North Korea’ appeared as a book by the Belgian publisher Hannibal and is also an exhibition that can be seen in Huis Marseille in Amsterdam until the beginning of March.